Mao's Accomplices

Published: February 27, 2000

To the Editor:

In his review of two new biographies of Mao Zedong (Feb. 6), John F. Burns regrets that he is unable to probe the psychological roots of great killers like Hitler, Stalin and Mao himself. Yet even if we were able to put those three men on the couch, what would we learn? Something about their own murderous delusions, to be sure. But the real question for the student of human affairs is not why such leaders behaved as they did; it is why millions of otherwise intelligent people were willing to follow them and to become, all too often, their willing accomplices.

And perhaps the question is also why, from the safety of the Western democracies, there were those in places like New York, Paris and London who were ready to cheer them on.